Triggered Response

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “How so?”

  “You could be a human key logger,” Claire said. “All you have to do is touch the computers used by the project team members and see what comes to you. Maybe we’ll luck out and you’ll see one of the scientists logging in.”

  “But the password would be encrypted.”

  “It’s not the password I’m after. Even if you could see the number, you probably wouldn’t be able to duplicate it, because it’s bound to be hundreds or even thousands of numerals long. But you might be able to help locate one of the SDs—Secure Digital chips. Using that, I can get in.”

  “Or Gage can. He’s pretty slick with computers.”

  He was trying to push her out again, as if she wasn’t part of this. “Computers aren’t his life,” she said smoothly. “They’re mine.”

  Sad to say, it was true, and one of the reasons she’d applied for the job at Cranesbrook in the first place. Her mother had recently moved to Florida with her latest lover, and her brother lived in Minneapolis, her sister in L.A. That left her with a lot of people who were more like good acquaintances than close friends. She’d figured if she got the job at Cranesbrook, at least she would be living close to the one person she could always count on, her best friend, Mac.

  The reminder had her glancing at her hand with the class ring, remembering how corny Mac had been when he’d given it to her. Now we’re officially going steady, he’d teased. Even then she’d realized the limitations of their relationship. Romantically he preferred someone with broader shoulders and a little beard stubble. At that time, he’d needed a cover and she’d been happy telling one more lie to protect him.

  Her coming up with a plan seemed to mellow Bray out. Rather than sitting next to her like a stone, he actually talked to her as if he cared. The good will continued through a fast dinner at a small café decorated in second-hand chic. While they ate, Claire easily picked up a wireless signal and got directions to the lighthouse.

  Then afterward, when Bray headed for the men’s room, she retrieved her e-mail just in case something important awaited her. Spam filter or not, some junk got through anyway. There were a few e-mails from friends, one from her sister.

  And one from Mac.

  Claire’s pulse surged and she stared at his name for a moment before looking at the date. It had been sent that very day.

  As she opened the email, Claire felt the pressure in her chest magnify.

  C—

  Get out now while you still can.

  M

  Her heart began to thunder. The pressure in her chest amplified. Mac had always used their initials rather than full names in his e-mail messages to her. The addy was his. And he’d replied to one of the dozens of e-mails she’d sent to him right after he’d disappeared.

  Mac Ellroy was alive!

  After all this time, he’d finally answered her pleas for communication.

  Why now? And why so cryptic?

  Why hadn’t he told her what had happened to him or how to contact him?

  Most of all, how had he known she could be in trouble?

  Did he still have some connection to Cranesbrook? How long ago had he learned she’d taken the job? Had he figured out she’d been trying to hack into Project Cypress files?

  Her mind whirled with questions.

  She tapped out a rapid reply asking him how she could find him. Then she stared at the screen, willing him to be right there online, willing him to answer her.

  Nothing.

  So she tapped out another message—this one asking him to tell her anything he could about Project Cypress. She admitted that she knew her investigating was dan gerous and that she’d learned there’d been a big cover-up, including an exchange of funds and murder.

  Even as she hit Send, Bray returned to the table.

  “I’ll get the bill,” he said, seeming not to notice her palpable tension. “Let’s get on the road so we can get you that change of clothes you want and still get to the lighthouse by eight.”

  “Sure, it’ll just take me a minute to close down.”

  And to calm down.

  Claire used the time it took Bray to settle the bill to breathe and steady herself as she waited a moment to see if she would get a reply from Mac. Nothing. She shut down her system. Somehow she got herself together. Somehow by the time she caught up to Bray at the entrance to the restaurant, she was wearing her game face.

  Mac was alive. Thank God. Not that it altered her own situation. She still had to know what had happened, what had made him disappear. She still had to help Bray clear his name, and maybe Mac, as well. She still had to help bring an end to the cover-up that had resulted in lost lives.

  That Mac might be part of it occurred to Claire, but she forced the unthinkable away.

  Not Mac.

  She knew him too well to think he would do something underhanded.

  As they left the restaurant, Bray asked, “What’s the deal with buying new clothes anyway? You look fine.”

  She’d added a hoodie to her jogging pants and top. Not exactly haute couture.

  “For an excursion to a beach and lighthouse, this is suitable. But once we hook up with Gage, I’m assuming we’re going to head for Cranesbrook. I need to look as professional as employees there are used to seeing. You don’t want me to raise any flags.”

  “Fine.”

  Bray didn’t argue, and Claire thought he was probably humoring her.

  They stopped at the first store they came to on a main street, and Bray made her buy the first pantsuit that fit her. Borrowing a pair of scissors from the clerk, she removed all tags. Thankfully, her shoes in the CRV would still do. She didn’t think Bray’s good will would hold up for another stop to shop. Not knowing what the lighthouse area would be like, she threw the bag of clothing in the back of the vehicle. She could change clothes later.

  Then they were on their way, traveling fast toward the lighthouse and what probably would be the end of their relationship.

  SO FAR, HIS MISSION had been a bust.

  A frustrated Gage Darnell stood in the middle of Bray’s deserted house. He’d used his telekinesis to get in and now wished it were in his power to conjure up his ex-partner.

  Trying to track Bray down had proven to be a waste of time. None of the employees at the marina could give him any information. No one there even knew Bray other than one of the cafe’s waitresses, and she’d only seen him once and briefly the morning before.

  Next he’d hit Bray’s usual haunts—the places they’d gone to eat or drink on the many occasions Bray had pulled him from the Baltimore office for a meeting. But no, Bray hadn’t been around since the accident.

  Finally he’d come here to Bray’s home and had practically ransacked the place looking for some kind of clue. Futile, he’d known even as he’d searched, because someone—the Feds, no doubt—had preceded him.

  Still, he’d had to try.

  It was now clear that Bray was alive and that he’d been connected to another explosion. Gage had felt it his duty to find his partner and make him talk.

  For the past two weeks he’d wavered between wanting to believe in Bray’s innocence and fearing the man he thought he knew was guilty of messing up over a fat payday. He still didn’t know which was true. He only knew he wanted his partner to be innocent, hoped to hell that Bray hadn’t betrayed his country for thirty pieces of silver.

  Not knowing where to check next, Gage decided to call Echo. She hadn’t answered earlier, but this time she picked up after the first ring.

  “It’s Gage,” he said.

  “What’s going on? Did that lead pan out?”

  “What lead?”

  “When you left here, you said you had a lead to follow up.”

  “When I left it was for some one-on-one time with Lily.”

  “You saw Lily this afternoon?”

  “This morning before I left Rehoboth Beach.” Silence. Gage frowned. What the hell was going on? “Is Bray there?” Is that why she was sou
nding so odd.

  “No. I haven’t seen my brother since this morning. But I called him this afternoon and told him to meet you like you said.” Echo paused. “You sound like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “You came to my place this afternoon and—”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Silence again. Gage’s mind was whirling. What the heck was going on? Did he have a look-alike? Surely, Echo would be able to tell the difference between them. Unless…

  His hackles rose.

  “Echo, I’m serious. I wasn’t at your place. I’ve been trying to track Bray down for hours. I’ve been to the marina, bars, restaurants. Not to your place.”

  “But I saw you. Spoke to you. Are you sure you don’t have some kind of amnesia like Bray has?”

  “Amnesia.” That explained why his partner had done that disappearing act. If the amnesia was for real. It didn’t explain why Echo thought he’d paid her a visit. “Let’s start from the beginning. Tell me what we talked about.”

  Gage listened with a growing sense of alarm, especially when Echo got to the part about Bray’s getting other peoples’ memories through touching objects. He hadn’t been the one parked on Echo’s doorstep earlier receiving that intel. That alone was cause for suspicion. But beyond that, Pseudo-Gage hadn’t gone inside. He’d stayed in the doorway as though he couldn’t go in…as though he were some sort of projection that couldn’t leave his creator’s line of sight.

  Why not? Each person who’d breathed in the chemicals had had a different reaction. Had gained a different mental power. Telekinesis, augmenting emotions, picking up memories…so why not projection?

  When Echo got to the part about the meeting at the lighthouse, he checked his watch.

  “Gage, do you remember any of this?”

  “I wasn’t at your place today, Echo.” Seventeen minutes to eight. Not much time to get there. “Someone else made you think I was here. Someone who got a different power from those chemicals than the rest of us did. Someone is setting Bray up.”

  Echo gasped. “What are we going to do?”

  “Hang in there, okay? I’m on my way to the lighthouse now.”

  BRAY FIGURED the switch would come at the lighthouse. They’d meet Gage there, then he would let Gage drive and send Claire on her way to someplace safe. The question was how. Getting her to back off wasn’t going to be easy. She was the most stubborn woman he’d ever met.

  Well, at least the most stubborn he could remember.

  According to the Internet, Lansdale Point was about a fifteen-minute drive northwest of town. The car clock read 7:48. And they were almost there.

  “So, anything coming to you about the significance of this lighthouse?” she asked.

  “Not a thing, but Gage must have a good reason to want to meet out there. Privacy, for one.”

  The road was deserted and twisted along the coast. The lighthouse probably marked shoals, a dangerous area for boats to get through. He could see glimpses of water, but the moon kept tucking itself under a cloud cover, so other than what was on the road in front of them, they were driving blind.

  “I suppose you’re right about the privacy,” Claire said. “Though I would think Gage could have suggested someplace a little more convenient. Maybe he needs to show you something connected to Cranesbrook at that location.”

  Although Bray couldn’t imagine what. Damn his memory!

  Or maybe not.

  If he’d had his memory, he might never have gotten together with Claire. She wouldn’t have been able to trick him. He never would have spent all this time with her.

  He never would have put her in danger.

  Though he thought she might have done that to herself anyway, he couldn’t help but feel responsible for her. Liar or not, she was a human being, one who roused unfamiliar feelings in him. If anything happened to her, he couldn’t live with himself. If she was too close, worry would distract him and he needed as clear a head as he could manage. He had to find a way to make her back off.

  The vehicle was slowing and the area ahead lit for a second. The lighthouse.

  “You can pull up over there,” Bray, said, pointing.

  “I think I’ll go a little farther, find some cover. You know, just in case.”

  Just in case there was danger?

  Claire would be in danger if she stuck with him through the night. How to make her run in the other direction was the question. Then it came to him—a way he could put a safe enough distance between them.

  “Tell me something, Claire,” he said as she pulled into an area protected by some wild-looking shrubs and trees. “Why’d you get yourself involved in this whole Cranesbrook mess?”

  “Because of you, of course.”

  “The real reason.”

  “Real? Aren’t you real enough?” she asked, a slight tightness in her voice giving her away as she stopped the vehicle.

  “But surely there’s something more.”

  “It isn’t enough that I’m trying to help my husband clear his name?” When he chose not to answer, she sighed. “Okay, I also don’t like people disappearing and getting killed or kidnapped.”

  “But you’re not a cop. Right?”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “I only know for sure what you tell me.”

  “Well, I’m not a cop.”

  “And you’re not working for the other team?”

  “Other team? What are you intimating, Bray? What other team?”

  Though she was trying to repress her anger, it seeped through her words, which came as something of a relief to Bray. If she were guilty of being a switch-hitter, he might hear caution in her tone. Or bravado. But not anger.

  “You tell me, Claire.”

  “This is a weird conversation. Can we drop it?”

  “Because you’re uncomfortable? I don’t think so. Not when it’s just getting interesting.”

  “If you don’t trust me, just say so.”

  “Should I trust you?”

  “Yes!”

  Here it came. “Then stop lying to me.”

  Claire didn’t even try to deny it. She simply went silent. Bray willed her to tell him the truth. The whole truth.

  So when she said, “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he finally spoke his mind.

  “I want you to start being honest with me. Or is that too much to ask? I’ve given you every opportunity to come clean.” He paused, gave her yet another chance. Nothing, so he went on. “I know we’re not married, Claire. I know you’re nothing to me.” That wasn’t true—she was quickly becoming his everything—but he said it with conviction so she would believe it. “So why? What did you think you’d get out of this charade? What was your motivation? Mac Ellroy—this lab tech who disappeared—did you love him?”

  She didn’t even hesitate before saying, “Yes!”

  There it was. The thing Bray had been most afraid of. Well, not most. She could have been a traitor or she could have gotten herself killed, either of which would have been worse. Still, he couldn’t help but feel his gut twist at the acknowledgment.

  Whatever he felt for her didn’t matter in the long run. As soon as she got the answers she wanted, she would be gone, just like his old man.

  “You’re really good at this,” he said, wondering if she felt anything at all for him. Even if she said so, how could he believe it? Lies came too easily to her. She’d stuck to him like glue because she thought he held all the answers locked in his chemically altered brain. “You’ll go to any lengths to get what you want.”

  “Bray, please—”

  He interrupted. “You even slept with me, Claire.” He had her on the hook and he wasn’t about to let go until he was certain he could make her turn her back on him for her own protection. Even so, he felt like the dirt under his shoe when he said, “Your being so easy doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of you.”

  Claire gasped and Bray got out
of the vehicle before he could soften and admit he didn’t mean that.

  Hopefully, he’d been cruel enough to drive her away from him and the danger he would face that night.

  As he headed for the lighthouse, Bray realized that to protect Claire, he’d just lied to her twice.

  The lighthouse at Lansdale Point was squat, octagonal and set on stilts. It was a screw-pile lighthouse suspended above water by cast-iron pilings with corkscrew-like bases driven into the sea floor. Bray could see its red-and-white facade every time the brilliant beam at the peak blipped. A ramp led from the lighthouse over several yards of water to a sandy area.

  Considering the tide was coming in fast, he wondered how long the entry to the ramp would stay on dry ground. The structure itself was dark inside, whether closed for the season or for good, he couldn’t tell.

  Not seeing Gage’s Jeep anywhere, he headed straight for the ramp.

  The night was dark. While a nearly full moon hung in the sky, a bank of clouds hid it. Rain was imminent.

  No doubt the rains wouldn’t be pleasant. Hopefully, the weather would hold till the wee hours of the morning.

  In the meantime, the wind blew in gusts and little whirls of sand lifted from the beach floor. The stronger the gust, the more the sand stung.

  Bray had an itchy feeling at the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the sand. Something was off, not quite right, though he couldn’t nail it. It didn’t help that the way the lighthouse beam flashed gave the area a macabre feel. He glanced back once to see that Claire hadn’t moved. She’d neither followed him, nor had she left the area. Her vehicle sat there, lights on, her engine’s hum the only sound competing with the water lapping at the shore.

  His gut twisted at how his lies must have made her feel. He’d done it for her own good, to keep her safe, so why didn’t she drive away?

  He almost went back. Almost followed his impulse to apologize, to tell her what he’d said wasn’t true. In the end, he steeled himself against those softer feelings and pushed against the wind toward the lighthouse.